Kane's Foods Collapsed Into Administration This Week. All 662 Jobs at Its Evesham Site Are Gone.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
In short. Kane's Foods Limited, a short-shelf-life food manufacturer making pre-packaged salads, stir-fry products and sauces in Evesham, Worcestershire, entered administration on 9 November 2026, with Timothy Higgins, Edward Williams and Helen Wheeler-Jones of PwC appointed joint administrators, confirmed by a London Gazette notice [1]. All 662 jobs at the site are gone [2]. The ledger logs a loss of 662, graded REPORTED, sector food and drink, region west-midlands, ai_cited: not raised.
What happened
Kane's Foods had been one of the Vale of Evesham's largest employers, supplying supermarkets with pre-packaged salads, stir-fry mixes and sauces from a refrigerated manufacturing site in the town. That ended on 9 November, when PwC's Timothy Higgins, Edward Williams and Helen Wheeler-Jones were appointed joint administrators of Kane's Foods Limited, a step recorded in a London Gazette notice published the following day under case number CR-2026-BHM-000574 [1]. Unlike Clayton Glass or Molson Group, there was no pre-pack sale carrying part of the workforce onward. All 662 jobs at the site went [2].
Local MP Nigel Huddleston called the closure "devastating news for the Vale of Evesham and ... for the hundreds of people and families who have lost their jobs" [2].
Why administrators were called in
The stated causes are operational rather than a slow market decline. A wastewater treatment plant failure in 2025 left the company facing large one-off repair costs on top of ongoing running costs, and a dry summer in 2026 disrupted the supply of the vegetables the site depends on. Both landed on a business already carrying losses and negative cash flow. A refinancing attempt and an accelerated sale process were both tried and both failed, leaving administration as the only route left [2]. AI is not cited anywhere in the reporting checked for this piece.
How the ledger logs it
A loss of 662, graded REPORTED because a London Gazette notice confirms the administrators' appointment, not just a press account. Status departed: the Gazette notice and local reporting both describe the jobs as already gone, not at risk of going. Region west-midlands, sector food and drink. This is one of the larger single-site losses this ledger has logged, clearing the 100-job article threshold by a wide margin.
What happens next in this ledger
Administrators typically publish a Statement of Administrator's Proposals within weeks, which can confirm whether any part of the site or its equipment finds a buyer, the way Clayton Glass's did for four of its seven factories. Worth checking for Evesham, and worth checking against the national pattern this ledger already carries: a wastewater failure and a bad harvest are not AI, not automation, and not a transformation programme. They are the kind of ordinary, operational shock that still accounts for most of what closes a factory in 2026.
Sources
- The Gazette, "Appointment of Administrators, Kane's Foods Limited," notice published 10 November 2026. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/5249892
- Evesham Observer, "662 jobs lost as Kane's Foods in Evesham goes into administration," 11 November 2026. https://eveshamobserver.co.uk/news/662-jobs-lost-as-kanes-foods-in-evesham-goes-into-administration/